For over three weeks now, women in Iran have stared down tear gas, batons and bullets as they frontline one of the biggest protests against the country’s theocratic regime, burning their hijabs, chopping off their hair, and chanting “death to the dictator”.
One of the protest videos to make it to the Internet – in a country where the online space is heavily regulated – shows schoolgirls heckling a personnel of the paramilitary force Basiji, shouting “get lost, Basiji”.
The sparks are now catching outside Iran, with French actors Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche, among others, cutting their hair in solidarity with Iranian women.
What led to the protests, what is fuelling them, and how has the government responded?
What caused the protest
The immediate trigger of the protest was the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, allegedly at the hands of Iran’s morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, on September 13. Amini was visiting Tehran from the Kurdish city of Saqez when she was detained for not wearing her veil properly. The hijab is mandatory in Iran – though about 90 years ago, wearing it was legally punishable.
The hijab rule had been relaxed when the more reformist Hassan Rouhani was in power, but since the hardliner President Ebrahim Raisi took over the post in 2021, enforcement has been strict.
While the police claimed Amini had a heart attack in custody, her family claimed she was tortured. Pictures of her bruised face went viral, and soon, people poured out on the streets. Chanting “Women, Life, Freedom”, the leaderless protests have spread town to town, crossing provincial, class and ethnicity boundaries and directly targetting the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in whom are concentrated the enormous religious, political and military might of a state where political dissent can be punished with death.
Experts say that the young, educated, and more internationally exposed Iranians have been chafing against the hijab and other restrictions for long, and Amini’s death served as the last straw. Yet, the protests are underpinned by pervasive economic distress.
Crippled by sanctions ever since its nuclear deal with the US broke down in 2015, Iran is witnessing both high inflation and high unemployment. Many Iranians feel that the effect of the sanctions has been worsened by domestic mismanagement and corruption.
Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director, foreign policy, The Brookings Institution, said in a podcast, “As a result of sanctions, but more particularly as a result of mismanagement over the past 43 years under Islamic rule, Iran has never reached anything like the economic potential that was briefly seen in the 1970s under the monarchy, whether in terms of oil production, but also just in terms of making the most of an incredibly well-educated population and a diverse natural resource and advanced industrial base.”
Anger had been building up as jobs became hard to come by and the cost of daily items rose, and is now fuelling the current protests.
How the govt has responded
While on the street, protesters are being met by the riot police and being rounded up, officially, the state has maintained that “foreign powers” are behind the agitation, in order to destabilise Iran. It has also launched cross-border attacks on Kurdish separatists in Iraq. Internet has been restricted, furthering economic woes.
On September 28, President Raisi said that while Amini’s death had “saddened” everyone, “chaos” would not be accepted. “We all are saddened by this tragic incident … (However) Chaos is unacceptable. The government’s red line is our people’s security … One cannot allow people to disturb the peace of society through riots,” Reuters quoted Raisi as saying.
A few days later, over a fortnight after the protests began, the ayatollah officially reacted, blaming the US and Israel for the unrest.
“I say clearly that these riots and the insecurity were engineered by America and the occupying, false Zionist regime [Israel], as well as their paid agents, with the help of some traitorous Iranians abroad,” Khamenei was quoted by the BBC as saying. Over claims of a violent crackdown on protesters, Khamenei backed the security forces, saying “injustice” had been meted out to them. He made it a point to add that Amini’s death “broke our hearts”.
On the ground, several activists and journalists have been arrested or detained, though there is no clarity on the numbers. According to an Associated Press report, an Oslo-based group called Iran Human Rights “estimates at least 154 people have been killed, though that includes an estimated 63 people killed in violence in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan. Iranian authorities have described the Zahedan violence as involving unnamed separatists.”
Iran is known for an iron fist response to protests. In 2019, during agitations against inflation, security forces killed around 1,500 people, Reuters has reported. This time, the state is yet to unleash its full might, though it has made no outreach towards the supporters either. Some experts believe this is because the government is unsure of how to respond, with brutality likely to further fan the flames. Others have said the indecision is because of factionalism amid the power circles – the ayatollah is in his 80s and reportedly sick, and his successor has not been picked yet.
“Iran’s leaders are probably trying to see if a combination of internet shutdowns, mass arrests, and some violence against protesters will slow the momentum of the protests,” Reuters quoted Eurasia Group analyst Henry Rome as saying. “But I don’t think anyone should doubt that, at the end of the day, the state has a backstop of loyal enforcers willing to kill their fellow citizens who can be called upon to end this round of protests,” Rome added.
Source » indianexpress